Microsoft CEO Presses For Action In Wake Of Taylor Swift Deepfakes In NBC Nightly News Interview
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is appalled by the sexually explicit Taylor Swift A.I. deepfakes that are circulating, and is calling for unspecified measures that would prevent its creators from continuing with their production.
Nadella made his comments in an NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt interview airing this Tuesday.
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“First of all, absolutely this is alarming and terrible,” Nadella said of the Swift deepfakes. “And so, therefore, yes, we have to act, and quite frankly, all of us in the tech platform, irrespective of what your standing on any particular issue is – I think we all benefit when the online world is a safe world.”
He added, “So I don’t think anyone would want an online world that is completely, not safe for, both for content creators and content consumers. So therefore, I think it behooves us to move fast on this.”
Microsoft has been accused of censorship in the past, most notoriously on its Bing search limitations on images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square confrontations.
The Reporters Without Borders organization criticized the company and other tech firms involved with China at that time, noting that it is “ironic that companies whose existence depends on freedom of information and expression have taken on the role of censor.”
Nadella advocated for “guardrails” in his talk with Holt to avoid the consequences of unfettered A.I.
“So I would say two things: one, is again, I go back to what I think is our responsibility, which is all of the guardrails that we need to place around the technology so that there’s more safe content that’s being produced. And there’s a lot to be done and a lot being done there. But it is about global, societal — you know, I’ll say, convergence on certain norms. And we can do – especially when you have law and law enforcement and tech platforms that can come together. I think we can govern a lot more than we think – we give ourselves credit for.”
The interview airs Tuesday on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt at 6:30 PM ET/5:30 CT.
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